47 6 UNGULATES. 



could see, they do not generally eat grass. Their movements are very quick, their 

 usual pace being a smart trot, and the numerous tracks show that they move about 

 a good deal." After expressing his doubts as to the statements of the natives that 

 a man on horse cannot escape from one of these animals, Mr. Blanford adds that 

 " they are easily eluded by turning, as they are not quick of sight, and, like most 

 mammals, they never look for enemies in trees ; consequently, a man two or three 

 feet from the ground will remain unnoticed by them if he keeps quiet. They are 

 said to be extremely savage, and unquestionably the first one killed by us charged 

 most viciously. ... I cannot help thinking, however, that their savage disposition 

 has been somewhat exaggerated." Most of these animals seen by the members of 

 the Abyssinian Expedition were in pairs, — an old female with a nearly full-grown 

 calf, — but on one occasion four were observed. Mr. Blanford compares the snort 

 of alarm or rage uttered by these animals when disturbed to the noise of a loco- 

 motive rather than to the sound of any other animal. 



The foregoing account is confirmed in all essential particulars by the observa- 

 tions of Mr. Selous in South-Eastern Africa, who writes that this species of rhinoceros 

 " lives exclusively upon bush and roots, eating not only the young leaves as they 

 sprout from the end of a twig, but also chewing up a good deal of the twig itself. 

 It is owing to the fact that this species lives upon bush that its range is very much 

 more extended than that of the square-mouthed rhinoceros ; for there are many 

 large districts of country in the neighbourhood of the Zambesi to the eastward of 

 the Victoria Falls covered almost entirely with an endless succession of rugged 

 hills, almost devoid of grass, though well wooded, in all of which districts the 

 prehensile-lipped rhinoceros is numerous, as it thrives well upon the scrubby bush 

 with which the hillsides and valleys are covered ; whereas the square-mouthed 

 species, though common in the forest -clad sand -belts and broad grassy valleys 

 which always skirt the hills, is seldom or never found among the hills themselves, 

 which is doubtless because the pasturage is too scanty to enable it to exist." 



The same writer also tells us that this rhinoceros, like the larger African 

 species, exhibits extraordinary activity in getting over hilly and rocky ground, 

 and that it can traverse places which at first sight appear utterly impracticable for 

 an animal of its bulky and apparently clumsy build. We also learn from the same 

 observer that while the present species of rhinoceros always walks with its nose 

 carried high in the air, the other kind walks with its muzzle close to the ground. 

 Again, whereas in the common species the calf invariably follows its mother, the 

 offspring of Burchell's rhinoceros as constantly precedes its parent. 



Mr. Selous agrees with Mr. Blanford that the ferocity of the prehensile-lipped 

 rhinoceros has been much exaggerated, and he is, indeed, inclined to regard it as 

 an animal of a rather cowardly, if not exactly peaceable, disposition. It must, 

 however, be borne in mind that those sportsmen who have attributed a ferocious 

 disposition to this species, always make a distinction in this respect between the 

 boreli and the keitloa, and give to the latter a much better character than they 

 assign to the former. Whether any difference in this respect is really associated 

 with the variations to which these names refer, we are not prepared to say (although 

 it seems most unlikely); but it is important to notice that even those who attribute 

 extreme ferocity of disposition to some individuals of this species have never 



